Defender boys fall to Danville in D4 AA final

November 3, 2013

Warrior Run fans who packed Kenneth Robbins stadium at Loyalsock Saturday night hoping to see both their soccer teams win District 4 Class AA titles ended up disappointed in both games.

After the girls team lost the early game to Montoursville, those fans were beginning to lose hope as Danville led the boys game 1-0 with five minutes to play, but Elias George renewed hope in the Warrior Run faithful as he scored at 75:10 and the fans were in frenzy.

Danville's Gage Reber ended that excitement as he scored 1:17 into overtime to push Danville into the state playoffs with a 2-1 win over Warrior Run. Danville will play District 2 runner-up Tunkhannock Tuesday at a District 2 site.

Article Photos

Kylan Trivelpiece of Warrior Run dribbles ahead of Danville’s Gage Reber Saturday in the District 4 Class AA?boys final at Loyalsock.

"It bounced in the turf pretty high and it went to Shayne (Riley) and Shayne tried to shoot and it hit one of the defenders in the hand," said Reber. "He was able to shield the defenders off and I called for it and just put it in the back left corner."

Eric Dempsey scored the game's first goal off a perfect pass from Riley. It was Dempsey's fifth goal in the last three games.

Danville had control for most of the game, but it had a hard time of finding the back of the net. If it wasn't for Reber's late game heroics, Danville would be wondering what could have been.

"I think we got a little cute in the second half," said Danville coach Brian Dressler. "With some of our attack instead of just shooting the ball, we were trying to get the perfect shot. Bunch of guys should have shot balls from 25 out and didn't and luckily didn't come back to bite us."

The Warrior Run offense struggled with getting shots as its first shot didn't come until the 48th minute and it ended with just four shots on goal.

But the Defenders came out much more aggressive in the second half and almost came away with a victory.

"It was kind of a tale of two games almost," said Warrior Run coach Doug Bastian. "In the sense we were so charged in the first half that we were going to the ball really, really well and then when we got to the ball we kind of forgot what to do with it. In the second half just trying to preach composure at halftimeonce you get to it just start playing smarter soccer and we did that."